6 facts about Seo In-guk, star of Netflix’s Café Minamdang – the ‘chameleon’ K-drama actor loves food, music, his mum … and older women
- He beat 720,000 others to win survival show Superstar K in 2009, won awards for 2012’s Reply 1997 and was last seen in 2021’s Doom At Your Service
- He dotes on his mum, opening a coffee shop for her in hometown Ulsan, is releasing new K-pop album Love & Love, and stars alongside Oh Yeon-seo and Kang Mi-na in the new show
Need something fresh to perk you up this summer? How about settling in for a coffee at Café Minamdang, Netflix’s new K-drama that introduces the venue’s mysterious customers and the quirky things that happen there?
“Just like a fan that’s needed in hot weather, Café Minamdang will come with a cool story in the heat of summer,” its biggest star Seo In-guk, told Soompi. In the lead role, opposite Oh Yeon-seo and Kang Mi-na, he plays a criminal profiler-turned-shaman who serves not only coffee but also justice at his cafe. But after a decade of playing various characters, who is the real Seo off-screen?
I think that love has no age boundaries. I would prefer an intelligent woman over a pretty one as my ideal type
I think that love has no age boundaries. I would prefer an intelligent woman over a pretty one as my ideal type
Singing and acting are equally important to him
Born in 1987, Seo had different dreams as an ambitious kid: to be a racing driver, weightlifter or even the president. He eventually became a singer after beating out 720,000 other applicants to win season one of the survival show Superstar K in 2009. Three years later, he also became an actor with Love Rain and Reply 1997, leading to a series of lead roles that won him several awards between 2012 and 2016, per Channel Korea.
The 34-year-old has focused on acting in recent years but he never forgot his passion for music. He created his own studio, writes original songs and has contributed to several original soundtracks, as he told AllKpop. On June 14, he released an album, Love & Love, five years after his last one, Walk Together, underlining that he feels music and film are “big parts of myself and my life”, as he told Australia’s SBS PopAsia in 2016.
“I am ambidextrous so if I am asked to choose between being a singer and an actor, it’s like as if you’re asking me not to use one hand. I focus on my acting when I act, but I live within my music at any other time. I feel like acting and singing coexist inside myself,” he told InStyle. “I think the correct answer is to work hard and improve both sides equally.”